Population Growth

and Population Projections

Birth Intervals
Post partum ovulation time to conceive birth
Amenorrhea conception

Menarche

Marriage

1st Birth
2nd Birth
Issues 3rd Birth
-Events out of order (births then marry)
-IVF
-Right censoring Menopause
-Multiple births
Population Growth

P(t+1) = P(t) + B(t) – D(t) + I(t) – E(t)

For now ignore migration
Focus on births and deaths together
Fertility and Population Growth

 TFR
– number of children born into a population
– 2.1 is considered replacement level fertility
 Sex ratio of births
– Number of females in the population
– Gross reproduction rate (GRR)
• Same as TFR except counts only female births
• Usually male births outnumber female births
• TFR = GRR x 2.05 (approx)
Fertility and Population Growth
Mortality
– To sustain a population, need to know how
many females survive to reproductive age
– Evolutionary biologists often refer to this is
reproductive fitness (measured as
– Net reproduction rate (NRR)
• Number of daughters born to a women that controls
for mortality
 Net Reproduction Rate
49

f
Total number of daughters born d
between 15 and 49 that takes
x Lx
into account survival of mothers.
x 15
Lx refers to number of person years lived by a cohort of
women
fx refers to the age – specific fertility rate

 49 d  
NRR    f x Lx   l0   Avg # daughters per woman
 x 15  
 NRR
NRR < GRR because of mortality
If NRR = GRR, then women are immortal
while in their reproductive years
If fertility and mortality rates are constant
for many years, have a constant growth
rate.
Using the NRR to Predict Growth

 NRR is a cohort measure of growth since it

assumes a number of daughters over the
reproductive years
 Most calculate NRR for a single year
 Japan in 1968 –
– TFR = 1.6
– GRR = 0.8
– NRR < 0.8
– Would predict population decline; didn’t happen
 Geometric and Exponential
Growth

Abosulte Change  P1  P0

Rate of change  r 
 P1  P0 
P0
Pt  P0 (1  r ) t
If r  0, then population growth
Geometric
Growth If r  0, then population decline

Assumes additions/deletions happen once a year

 Growth Rates

Population Growth Rates in Urban and Rural Areas, Less and More Developed Countries, 1975 to 2000 and 2000 to 2025. Derived from United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 1999 Revision
Geometric and Exponential
Growth

Abosulte Change  P1  P0

Rate of change  r 
 P1  P0 
P0
Pt  P0 e rt
If r  0, then population growth
Exponential
Growth If r  0, then population decline

Assumes additions/deletions happen throughout the year

 70
Doubling Time 
annual rate of change

In some urban areas in developing countries, growth rate is

.07 or 7% so 70/7 means a population doubling in 10 years

Many developed countries have very low growth rates and, as

a result, the equation shows doubling times of hundreds or
thousands of years. But these countries are not expected to
ever double again. Most, in fact, likely have population
declines in their future.

Many less developed countries have high growth rates that

are associated with short doubling times, but are expected to
grow more slowly as birth rates are expected to continue to
decline
Excel example of geometric
growth
R=6.9%

R=4.2%

R=3.5%
Annual Growth Rate and NRR

 Link NRR to growth rate

 NRR is a comparison of one generation (mothers)
to another (daughters)
 Measure the population size after the length of
one generation (g)
Pg Po e rg
NRR  or NRR   e rg
Po Po
 Note: book does not mention gender per se
Population Structure

Population pyramids
– Age/sex histograms
– http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbpyr.html
Shapes of Population Pyramids
HIGHLIGHTS IN WORLD POPULATION GROWTH
1 billion in 1804
2  billion in 1927 (123 years later)
3  billion in 1960 (33 years later)
4  billion in 1974 (14 years later)
5  billion in 1987 (13 years later)
6  billion in 1999 (12 years later) 
Dependency Ratio

Another measure of the age distribution

Defined as the number of non-working age
persons per 100 working age persons

 ( Pop017 )  ( Pop65 ) 100

 Pop1864 
 Stable Population
 Lotka's concept of a stable population (circa 1907).
 If any population has:
– No migration,
– Mortality & fertility age-specific rates remain constant for a long
period
 Then a fixed age structure will develop (called stable age
structure) which does not depend of the initial age structure.
 Population will also increase in size at a constant rate.
 Stationary population (which has a zero rate of increase) is a
special case of stable population
Stationary Population

A population with
– No migration
– Constant age specific mortality
– Has birth and death rates that yield a growth
rate of ZERO
This is known as a stationary population.
Its size is constant and its age structure
(% in each age category) is also constant.
 How Many Are There in A
Stable Population?
Objective: Calculate Ax

No. of people alive in current year aged x in a stable pop.

Ax  (no. births x  12 yrs ago)  ( prop survived to age x  12 )
 (no. births x  12 yrs ago)  (l x  1 )
2

where l x  1  (l x  l x 1 ) / 2  Lx
2
 How Many Are There in A
Stable Population?
Objective: Calculate b, crude birth rate, in a stable population

f P x x
b x
P
where f x  age  specific birth rates
Px  population size at age x
P  total population size

Let Px  c x P where c x is the proportion of P

who are aged x.

So, b  fc
x
x x
How Many Are There in A
Stable Population?
Objective: Calculate population x+1/2 years ago
 r ( x  12 )
P( x  1 )  Pe
2

The number of births in a stable population that occurred

x + 1/2 years ago is simply the crude birth rate b (which
does not change) times the population x + 1/2 years ago.

Now, not all those people survived – need to calculate

proportion survived to age x:

Lx in a stable population which does not change

How Many Are There in A
Stable Population?
(Number born x+1/2 years ago) x (survived at age x+1/2)
tells you how many people there will be at age x today in
a stable population
 r ( x  12 )
Ax  (b  Pe )  Lx
and when you divide both sides by P,
 r ( x  12 )
c x  (b  e )  Lx .

And when the population is stationary (r  0),

c x  b  Lx
where b  lo / To (if a stationary pop) because
To   l x.
x
Excel Example
Population Projections

Why Do It?
How To Do It?
– Mathematical models
• Simple
• Works for some circumstances
– Component Method
• Harder
• More extensive data requirements
 Mathematical Models

Exponential Growth Implies

perpetual growth
Pt  P0 e rt or ultimate
Logistic Growth extinction
r
Pt 
Cre  rt  1
K Assumes there
Pt  are upper and
1  e (   t )
lower bounds to
r
where K  ,    r ,   ln(Cr ) population size
k k
 Exponential Growth

Pt  P0 e rt
How do we estimate r when
we have historical data ?

Estimate a simple regression :

ln Pt  ln P0  rt
Assumes a linear effect of time on population size.
GO TO EXCEL
 Logistic Growth
Logistic Growth
K
Pt 
1  e (   t )
r
K   Maximum population size specified
k
by the projection ist (upper asymptote )
  Pt  
  K 
ln        t
 1  Pt  
 K  
   
Last line is specified as a regression and can be estimated as one
GO TO EXCEL
Component Method

Needs a great deal of data, often at the level

of detail of single ages.
The number of components can vary
depending upon the type of projection
needed
All projections reflect the assumptions you
make about which components you use,
their stability/change over time, and how far
into the future you project
 Component Method

(1) P m
x 1, t 1  P (1  q
m
x,t
m
x  12
)M m
x 1, t 1

for ages except newborns

( 2) P m
0 , t 1  B (1  q )  M
m
t
1
2
m
0 ,t
m
0 , t 1

for newborns
(3) Bt   f  P
1
x ,t 2
f
x ,t P f
x ,t 1 
x
Equations 1 and 2 show m(ale) superscripts; comparable equations for females
Europe has just entered a critical phase of its demographic evolution.

Around the year 2000, the population began to generate "negative

momentum": a tendency to decline owing to shrinking cohorts of young
people that was brought on by low fertility (birthrate) over the past three
decades.

Currently, the effect of negative momentum on future population is

small. However, each additional decade that fertility remains at its
present low level will imply a further decline in the European Union
(EU) of 25 to 40 million people, in the absence of offsetting effects from
immigration or rising life expectancy.
 Population
Momentum

The tendency for population growth to continue beyond the time

that replacement-level fertility has been achieved because of a
relatively high concentration of people in the childbearing years.

For example, the absolute numbers of people in developing

countries will continue to increase over the next several decades
even as the rates of population growth will decline. This
phenomenon is due to past high fertility rates which results in a
large number of young people. As these youth grow older and
move through reproductive ages, the greater number of births will
exceed the number of deaths in the older populations
Projection methods and assumptions. The alternative
population projections were carried out using
standard cohort component population projection
methods using software developed by the authors.
Since this analysis aims at isolating the impacts of
alternative fertility assumptions, in all scenarios only
the fertility component was modified as described in
Table 1, while we assumed that mortality stayed
constant at life expectancies of 81.5 years for women
and 75.5 years for men. We also assumed a closed
population without migration.
Doing Component Methods of
Population Projections